Beef Sukiyaki from EPCOT - Cooking with Character (2024)

FAQs

How to finish sukiyaki? ›

To Enjoy the Finishing Course (Shime)

We usually end the sukiyaki meal with a final course (shime) of udon. When most of the ingredients have disappeared, add the cooked udon noodles to the remaining broth in the sukiyaki pot. Heat through and enjoy.

Sukiyaki features vegetables, noodles, tofu, and steak served in a steaming, flavorful broth made with dashi, mirin, and soy sauce. This Japanese dish is traditionally cooked at the table in a pot of simmering broth.

noun. a Japanese dish consisting of very thinly sliced beef or other meat, vegetables, and seasonings cooked together quickly, usually at the table.

The most common way to write “sukiyaki” is すき焼き. But it does have a proper kanji-based name, which is written as 鋤焼. The kanji suki (鋤) means “spade”.

Thus, sukiyaki gradually became a common meal among Japanese people. In the Kansai District, the dish was called “sukiyaki,” as it is called today, but in the Kanto District the dish was called “gyu-nabe,” and it became tremendously popular among common people.

Sukiyaki beef can easily be tenderized by cutting it into thin strips at the right angle. Slicing across the grain makes the sinews shorter, letting you cook the beef faster. We suggest cutting the meat to paper-thin slices.

It is believed that the term "sukiyaki" was coined in 1801 when a farmer cooked ingredients like chicken on top of a "suki" or spade in English. The sukiyaki that we eat today, typically made with beef, has its origins in Kobe City of Hyogo Prefecture in the Kansai region.

Suki translates best to 'like', but it's used in Japan to express that you're romantically interested in someone. You can also use it to say that you like something, like food, a skirt, anything. Again, Japanese is highly contextual, so the object of your affection isn't indicated in suki desu alone.

Sukiyaki has a more complex, sweeter flavor due to the sweet soy-based broth, while in shabu shabu the natural taste of the beef and vegetables shine with the more delicate broth. This becomes particularly noticeable as the broth gets seasoned over the course of the meal from the beef and vegetables being dipped in it.

With Kanto-style sukiyaki, once the ingredients have been fried and cooked in warish*ta or another kind of dashi, they are usually dipped in raw egg before eating. Dipping the warish*ta-infused ingredients into the raw egg gives them a mellow taste.

How do you finish a meal in Japan? ›

After finishing your meal, it is generally good manner to return all your dishes to how they were at the start of the meal. This includes replacing the lids on dishes and putting your chopsticks back on the chopstick rest or in its paper holder.

The ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw, beaten eggs after being cooked in the pot, and then eaten. Generally sukiyaki is a winter dish and it is commonly found at bōnenkai, Japanese year-end parties.

Some higher quality beef comes from cows that are fed beer and frequently massaged to fatten them up just right. Such stock is treated as a high-end brand in Japan. High-class restaurants that specialize in sukiyaki or shabu-shabu are generally very expensive due to the high quality of meat used.